fisa. whether this number is large or small, i believe we must enforce meaningful protections for circumstances when the government searches through its database of captured communications looking for information on individual american citizens. otherwise, by means of these so-called backdoor searches, the government may conduct significant warrantless surveillance of american persons. i believe this current practice is inconsistent with core fourth amendment privacy protections and needs to be reformed. during consideration of fisa in the judiciary committee, senator durbin and i introduced a bipartisan amendment to address this very problem. the language of our amendment is identical to that offered by senators wyden and udall during consideration of fisa by the select committee on intelligence. the amendment clarifies that section 702 does not permit the government to search its data base of fisa materials to identify communications of a particular united states person. in effect, it wou